Barack Obama, in his big science speech yesterday:

A half century ago, this nation made a commitment to lead the world in scientific and technological innovation…. That was the high water mark of America’s investment in research and development. And since then our investments have steadily declined as a share of our national income. As a result, other countries are now beginning to pull ahead in the pursuit of this generation’s great discoveries.

A timely reminder that we are not the world leaders we once were:

Hong Kong said Monday it has assigned a team of scientists to develop a test that will hopefully cut the time it takes to diagnose the new swine flu strain from a few days to a few hours.

Researchers in Hong Kong played a big role in discovering and determining how to treat SARS — a separate deadly virus that spread rapidly in 2003, killing more than 900 people. The island was the second hardest hit after mainland China.

Thomas Tsang, controller for Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection, said the government and the territory’s universities are jointly developing the rapid swine flu test using genetic information on the virus from the World Health Organization. Such data is shared with designated flu laboratories worldwide.

The American government and American universities have access to the same WHO data. But it’s Hong Kong that’s taking the lead on this one.